Gospel Story Finder

Let me relate an experience regarding these discussions.
I remember so well when a matter was being discussed where different members of the Twelve had differing views and expressed them freely. When President McKay summed up the discussion and said, “This is what I think we should do,” I turned to the brother next to me and said:
“Isn’t it wonderful to see how he always comes up with the right answer, and we all seem to feel that it is the right answer?”
My colleague turned to me and said, “You are listening to a prophet of God.” This is how we know that any decision that is made becomes the unanimous decision of the group, regardless of the feeling of any member prior to the decision.

Recently I interviewed an exceptionally stalwart priesthood holder for a temple recommend. I asked him if he sustained his bishop, his stake president, and the president of the Church. Of course his reply to each question was sincere, humble, and strongly affirmative. Then I asked him if he sustained his wife in her calling. He paused to think about it for a minute before answering that he did.
Then he added, “President, this has been very hard for me. In the past I was the one who held important, executive positions in the Church, but now our roles are reversed. My wife is an auxiliary president; the phone calls are all for her, she goes to the leadership meetings, she is in the forefront of action. I’m the one now who stays home to take care of the children often while she’s doing Church work. I’m doing my best to support her, but this is a new experience.”
We counseled together about the eternal importance of husbands and wives working together as a team, sustaining and supporting each other in all aspects of their lives, and then concluded the interview.

When I was twelve, the bishop asked me to help him deliver Christmas baskets to the widows of the ward. I felt honored to be asked. It was snowing on the day that we made the deliveries. I remember that the backseat of the bishop’s car was filled with baskets containing grapefruit and oranges. This was during World War II, when grapefruit and oranges were scarce, so they were quite a treat. The bishop waited in the car while I took a basket up to the door and said, “The bishop asked me to deliver this to you. It is a Christmas basket from the ward.”
Soon we had delivered all the baskets but one. The bishop took me home, and before I got out of the car, he handed me the last basket and said, “This is for your mother.” Then he drove away.
I stood there in front of our house, snowflakes falling on my face, holding the basket and wondering and thinking. We had been delivering baskets to widows, and I hadn’t thought of my mother as a widow. I had never heard her refer to herself as a widow. That was the first time it occurred to me that somebody thought that she was a widow.
I realized that Mother handled that circumstance with a great deal of faith. She taught us that we had a father and she had a husband and that we would always be a family because of her and my father’s temple marriage. I’d always just felt that my father was away because the Lord had called him to another work. I knew other kids had dads who took them hunting and fishing, and I felt that absence keenly. But those were war years, so I thought of myself as like a boy whose father was away in the war. My father would be away for a very long time, and it hurt me that he wasn’t there, but I knew that someday we would be together again. Since that time, my testimony of the importance of temple marriage has grown even stronger. How grateful I am for temple marriage and for the blessing of being sealed together as an eternal family.

A few months prior to the start of my service as a full-time missionary for the Church, I was diagnosed with vocal nodules. Nodules are calluses that develop on your vocal cords as a result of consistent and overwhelming friction. Fortunately, I was still able to start my mission.
Then, three months into my mission, I went in for a checkup. I learned there was a bleed on my vocal cord and that I would be on almost complete vocal rest for the next eight months.
I started my vocal rest immediately. I would avoid talking each day until about 3:00 p.m., using sign language to communicate with my companion. After that, I would talk only when absolutely necessary. We made social media missionary work a much bigger part of our daily schedule, and my companion took the lead in all contacts and teaching appointments.
But as the vocal rest continued, instead of feeling better, I felt even more intense burning in my throat nearly all the time. I had to save the few words I could speak for special occasions, and my world grew very lonely. I hardly felt like myself anymore. The outgoing, bubbly, 20-year-old girl I was just a few short weeks earlier was now quiet, reserved, and struggling to know how she fit in. I found myself crying multiple times a day. As each unspoken thought or feeling was swallowed in silence, I was losing myself.
On one particular occasion, I felt more darkness than usual and prayed for some glimmer of hope. It was then that the words to one of my favorite hymns came to mind:
There is music in my soul today,
A carol to my King,
And Jesus listening can hear
The songs I cannot sing.1
I was immediately struck by the last phrase and overwhelmed with the love my Savior has for me. I knew in that moment that I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t invisible. And I certainly wasn’t forgotten.
One of my favorite phrases from the scriptures is “song of the heart” (Doctrine and Covenants 25:12). I realized I didn’t need my physical voice to be heard by Heavenly Father and by the Savior. They are always listening to every thought, prayer, heartache, and question, whether spoken out loud or not. I thought I was losing myself because I couldn’t speak, but without a word having ever been uttered, the songs sung by a silent, struggling young girl—the songs of my heart—rose to heaven and brought peace to my soul.
Although I have yet to receive my healing miracle, I have been empowered by the advice of President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) to “be patient, do your part, and express gratitude for the smallest improvement noted.”2 With every step in the right direction, I feel reassured that “this too shall pass.” In the last few months, I’ve been able to end my vocal rest earlier in the afternoon and talk with less pain.
I do not know when I will receive complete physical healing, but I have seen emotional healing come in many different ways. I’ve learned that the key to overcoming hardship is maintaining a close and direct relationship with God. This includes not only praying but also being quiet long enough to hear His voice. Instead of asking, “Why?” I started asking, “What did my trial give me today?” As I did, I began to see traces of God all around me.
Because of my trial, I have learned the importance of slowing down and connecting with my heavenly roots. I have also been blessed to appreciate more fully the musical gifts and abilities of others. Not being able to speak has allowed me to listen more to others and deepen my compassion for them. On the other hand, I have been reminded of the strength that comes from letting others help me.
Throughout my physical trials, I’ve come to learn that hope is not crossing our fingers or holding our breath for a desired outcome. Hope is not hanging on until we see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hope is the lantern we carry on our way through. It is what helps us move forward and shows us that we are not walking alone but with Heavenly Father and the Savior every step of the way.

I have one such story in my legacy. Grandmother Eyring learned from a doctor in his office that she would die of stomach cancer. My father, her oldest son, had driven her there and was waiting for her. He told me that on the way home she said, “Now, Henry, let’s be cheerful. Let’s sing hymns.” They sang “O My Father” (Hymns, no. 292) and “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” where the last verse begins, “And should we die before our journey’s through” (Hymns, no. 30).

I wasn’t there, but I imagine they sang loudly—they didn’t have very melodic voices—with faith and no tears. She spent part of her last months in the home of her oldest child, her daughter. Aunt Camilla told me that Grandma complained only once, and then it was not really a complaint but just to say that it hurt.

Now, there are many people who have been cheerful and brave in the face of death. But it means far more to her family when the person has taught and testified of the power of the Savior to succor, of the sureness of the Resurrection, and of the hope of eternal life. The Spirit confirmed to me that Grandma’s peace and her courage were signs that her testimony was true, and because of that, all was well, all was well.

One summer when I was 16, I remember sitting down and writing in my journal all the qualities I wanted in a future husband—testimony, good looks, sense of humor, money, education. I thought these were all good qualities. But when my oldest daughter, Becky, was 16, she came to me and asked, “What is the most important quality to look for in a husband?” By then I had been married for many years. I knew the answer to that question. I believe the most important quality we can possess is integrity. How I love the value of integrity!

We have four kids. Our two youngest were on the high school varsity basketball team together. The older son played nearly every minute of every basketball game. Our younger son mainly sat on the team bench that year, cheering on the others.
For years, I heard those sons in their basement bedroom, through the air vent at bedtime, as they talked to each other. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but I could detect various emotions and changes in volume. Because they always left their phones upstairs at bedtime, they were free of distraction and could focus on those talks. They, with their very different personalities, really invested in that friendship. The older brother, who is now on his mission, loved to elongate the conversations late into the night, asking “would-you-rathers” and “highs and lows,” talking of sports, friends, and missions. So, in secret, they conversed. Not for show. No street corners. Simply a brotherhood that grew bit by bit through thousands of conversations.
We were at their high school basketball game two years ago. Our team’s rival had come to play, and the bleachers filled with extremely loud fans. At a key moment, near the end of the game, we needed to score in order to win. Our older son shot and made a beautiful shot, and the place went crazy. Everyone was screaming. I looked down at the team bench, at his little brother, who never got to play. He was the first to jump up off the team bench and turn toward the crowd. He pointed to himself and yelled, “That’s my brother! That’s my brother!” He wasn’t competitive with him. He wasn’t jealous that his brother got lots of playing time. Because of their bond that they had worked on in the basement, talking every evening, he only had joy for his brother and the desire to belong to him in that moment.

After reading the Book of Mormon, seminary students in Sidney, Montana, went to pizzas. Twenty-one of them.
Brother Charles L. Duncan, seminary teacher, challenged the entire Sidney Branch to read the Book of Mormon before the night of seminary graduation. He promised a pizza party to everyone accepting and accomplishing his challenge.
Of those taking on the challenge, some were really speedy, finishing the book in a matter of weeks. Some procrastinators read the last 100 pages in the final two days. When the deadline passed, over 70 percent of those accepting the challenge had finished and were qualified to attend the pizza party. A total of 16,434 pages were read.
The youngest person to read the Book of Mormon during the challenge was nine-year-old Dean White. He finished it long before most of the older readers. A nonmember, David Pope, finished reading the Book of Mormon and was baptized soon after the pizza party. Brother Duncan’s children, too young to read themselves, had the Book of Mormon read to them during meals.
On the night of the party, the Book of Mormon scholars descended on the Duncan home armed with pepperoni, mozzarella, olives, and mushrooms. Soon 21 pizzas were made and eaten.

Genealogical research has always been difficult for me because I didn’t have the necessary information about most of my family members. However, that didn’t stop me from getting the booklet “My Family: Stories That Bring Us Together” and writing down my information about my parents and two grandmothers, who are still alive. My grandmothers also helped me gather the necessary information about my two deceased grandfathers and other important names.
I still felt like I didn’t know much about my family and couldn’t find the answers because I didn’t know who to ask without upsetting anyone. In Haitian culture, asking about relatives who have passed away can make people feel suspicious or angry. Often, the closest family members think you’re only asking so you can get something, like an inheritance, from the person who died.
For about four years, I had to make do with only the information I had while constantly thinking about how to find what was missing. Then I received a miracle that changed everything.
On September 12, 2024, I enrolled in a family history institute class, hoping to find answers to some of my genealogical questions. A few weeks later, one of our cousins visited our family. He was a distant cousin on my maternal side, and we only met him a year before, after a family member created a WhatsApp group.
During this brief visit, I talked with him and exchanged a few thoughts about spirituality. That’s when he told me he was a Latter-day Saint and was already familiar with the principles I was teaching him. I was so happy to know that I had a distant family member who had also received the blessings of the gospel. Even though he also told me he had distanced himself from the Church in recent years, I didn’t lose hope that he might one day return.
As we talked, he started telling me stories about family members I had never heard of—stories that gave me exactly the information I needed for my family history research. He also mentioned that someone in the family had written a full document about all the generations in our family. He said it had everything needed to really understand our family’s past and present.
I was both happy and surprised to discover that such a document existed in our family. However, despite my excitement, I was hesitant to ask him for the PDF version of the document, fearing I might be misunderstood. After he left, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I felt the Spirit prompting me to ask my cousin for access to it.
After several minutes of reflection and prayer, I contacted him and asked for the PDF version of the family document he had mentioned during his visit. I reminded him that it would help complete my genealogical research, which we Latter-day Saints hold in such high importance. He replied quickly and enthusiastically, saying he remembered this sacred work and was happy that I was asking for the document. Less than five minutes later, I received it.
I was amazed to find the 259-page document more complete than expected. It had all the information I needed about a key branch of my mother’s family. While reading, I saw a familiar last name: my BYU–Pathway missionary’s name. On a whim, I messaged him to ask if the names were part of his family too. He said yes, and as we talked more, we discovered we were first cousins.
The following week, I shared this with my institute class. I felt deeply grateful—not only for the family names and details but also for reconnecting with a Church member and missionary who had once helped me with school.
This experience strengthened my testimony of the power of family history work, the ongoing gathering of Israel, and the truth that God always prepares a way for those who have faith to accomplish what He commands (see 1 Nephi 3:7). With faith, I also know that God will help me find the missing information on my paternal line so I can continue completing my family tree.

Following the directions of Church leaders was an accepted thing to Don McBride. When he was nine years old, his father had accepted a call from President John Taylor to leave his home in Santaquin, Utah, to colonize the Gila Valley area of Arizona. Life was hard there; scarce rainfall made farming difficult. Water was obtained only by irrigation. Don and his brothers helped support the family by freighting goods across Indian territory.
On January 13, 1897, Don McBride married Mary LaPreal Nuttal. In October of that year, their son, Donald, was born. When the call came from the First Presidency to serve a mission in the Samoan Islands, Don, with the support of his wife, accepted immediately.
In June 1898 Elder McBride, with only a few dollars in his pockets, left for Salt Lake City to be set apart for his mission. There he received a special blessing from a General Authority of the Church. The blessing contained a promise that if he would fill an honorable mission, obeying those who were in authority over him, he would have power to command the winds and waves of the sea to be still.
Elder McBride thought little of this promise upon his arrival in Samoa. He worked diligently to master the Samoan language. In his mission journal he wrote, “Fasted all day and prayed to the Lord in secret to help me learn the language. … I study very hard to get the language, but it is slow work.” Then, as he began to feel more sure of the language, he started to offer prayers and to bear his testimony at meetings and to teach in the Church-organized schools. He even helped in translating the Bible into Samoan.
Elder McBride encountered prejudice and opposition from the ministers of other churches on the islands. He wrote, “In looking around I find the field is by no means clear and prejudice staring me in the face as the Teachers have forbidden anyone attending our meetings.”
He learned to enjoy the unaccustomed food delicacies of the Samoan people and mentions feasting on roasted bat, ula (breadfruit), and palela (a kind of sea worm). He also grew to appreciate their sincere friendliness and hospitality.
Elder McBride and his companion were called to travel to the island of Savaii to prepare for a conference to be held there. As they drew near the island in a boat, a fierce inland wind suddenly forced them back out to sea. Having no compass, they knew that they would be lost if they didn’t keep the island in sight. They and the Samoan men with them took turns rowing until all were exhausted, their hands blistered and raw.
Suddenly Elder McBride remembered the blessing that had been given to him. He arose at once and stretched forth his hands. In the name of Jesus Christ he commanded the winds and the waves to be still. Immediately the winds subsided, and the terrifying waves became peaceful, astonishing the frightened natives. Although the men were now far out to sea, they turned their boat toward the island and rowed to it safely.
Don Carlos McBride served two missions to the Samoan Islands, spending a total of nearly seven years there. In 1910, during his second mission, he was called to be the mission president. Despite the hardships and sacrifice involved, he served with obedience and love.

Groundskeepers gather early in the morning, before I am even out of bed, to pray for protection for their days' work. Does it matter? Yes. A few months ago the large banyan tree, after which the Banyan Tree Snack Bar is named, fell right over. One of our good workers had been standing right in its path only moments before. Fortunately, he was asked to go for a piece of equipment and had left the area. He would have been crushed. The concrete beneath the tree was smashed to pieces. I believe he was spared because his work group had prayed for safety and protection.

The real key to serving with our talents is to have the Spirit with us. When I was a missionary, I read at the top of the second page in my mission handbook: “The Key to Spirituality.” (This was before the mission handbook was standardized, and the handbook would have been unique to my mission.) It said, “Arise at six each morning and pray intently, hungering and thirsting for the influence of the Spirit to fill your body, until it does.” Of course, the time of rising is negotiable; that was just our mission rule. When I was out five weeks, I was called to train a new missionary, and I really felt my inadequacy. It was the blind leading the blind. I decided I must have the Spirit if I was to succeed, so I started applying this Key to Spirituality. I had prayed for the Spirit before, but never until the Spirit. It was difficult at first. I tried to repent and humble myself and struggle in prayer until I felt the Spirit. I had already had experiences in the first weeks of my mission that had shown me the difference between working with the “power and gifts of God” and working with the power and gifts of Ray Smith. The difference was stark, and I knew that it was hardly worth walking out the door to do the work if I did not have the Spirit with me. I learned that I really could feel the Spirit on a daily basis. It became the norm for the rest of my mission.

When I left my mission to come home, I realized that I needed the Spirit just as much at home as I did in the mission field. I decided to continue the practice of praying daily until I felt the Spirit. I am still doing it today. After returning home, I found a quote from Truman G. Madsen: “Happy is the youth who prays for, and then until, and finally with, this subtle flame” (“Christ and Prayer,” 17). I have experienced the power of that idea.

When my father announced that he was taking sabbatical leave and our family would be moving from Hawaii to Michigan for a year, I shouted for joy. What were sandy beaches and swaying palms compared to ice and snow?

We had lived in the sleepy town of Laie, Hawaii, since I was five years old. Now, at age 12, I’d had six full years of rollicking in frothy surf, of jumping waves, and of eating wild mountain fruit. The soles of my feet were the toughest footgear I owned.

But as an avid reader, I had run through the snowy Alps with Heidi, skated with Hans Brinker, and sledded with the Bobbsey twins, although in reality the only snow I’d seen was the stuff we scraped from inside the freezer. Michigan! What an adventure for a 12-year-old who’d spent most of her life in a provincial tropical village. I didn’t stop to think about how we’d fit in in our new community, whether we’d be accepted or have friends. I just knew that everything would be wonderful.

Finally, school started. I had dreamed about the new friends I would meet. But I spent the first few weeks of junior high curiously surveying the school and waiting for classmates to befriend me. The other seventh-grade girls seemed so much older and superior. They wore nylons, earrings, makeup. Some of the rowdy ones smoked and had boyfriends.

Weeks went by, then months. A few kids said hi and asked what it was like to live in Hawaii, but no one seemed interested in being my friend. I was puzzled. Was it my clothing or my personality? In Hawaii we had always been friendly to the new kids.

Church and home were the only two places where I felt accepted. The kids at church didn’t seem to care about my eerie eyewear or my outdated clothing. I loved activity nights. An industrious seamstress, I modeled several of my creations in an MIA fashion show. Another time I participated in an impromptu speech contest and did terribly, but no one seemed to mind. Virginia Webb became a good friend, but she attended a different junior high.

I began to live for weekends and the hours after school spent playing with my brothers and sisters. In Hawaii we had had scores of friends and rarely played together. But here my brothers and sisters became my closest friends. They were there when that long-awaited snow finally fell. We frolicked in it like kittens in catnip. We held our mouths open as it fell. Each flake was a miracle, every snowball another excuse to giggle.

Of course we didn’t. In a year the sabbatical was over, and we returned to Hawaii, our scores of friends, our waves and mountain fruit, our mild weather and perpetually green foliage. Never was I happier than when we returned to our beloved island.

And yet now, 20 years later, when I think of Michigan, I smile. With fondness I recall Alan running barefoot in the snow. I grin at the memory of Philip and me raking autumn leaves. My heart soars when I remember skimming across a frozen lake with Polly or strolling through the farmer’s market with my father. Tears come to my eyes when I think about the whole family piling into our cream-colored station wagon, off for a picnic in Kalamazoo.

It isn’t easy to move when you’re in junior high school. It’s even tougher when you’re poor and you’re exchanging a provincial paradise for a bustling college town. There were times when I was sure I would never make it.

But now, given some time and distance, I know what the secret was. I leaned on my family. And because of them I survived.

We see this promise fulfilled in the lives of faithful people. It was a little over a year ago that I was privileged to meet Travis and Kacie. They were married civilly in 2007. At the time, Travis was not a member of the Church. Kacie, though raised in an active Latter-day Saint home, had drifted from her faith in her teens and had strayed from her foundation.

In 2018, Travis met the missionaries, and he was baptized in 2019. Travis became a missionary to Kacie, who also experienced a life-changing conversion. They were sealed in the temple in September 2020. About two years after his baptism, Travis was called to serve in the bishopric.

Travis has a rare disease that continuously forms clusters of tumors in his internal organs. He has undergone many surgeries to remove the recurring tumors, but the disease is incurable. Several years ago, Travis was given fewer than 10 years to live.

Kacie has retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease that causes irreversible narrowing of the field of vision until complete blindness sets in.

Kacie spoke to me of her future. She anticipated the time, not far distant, when she would be widowed, blind, without financial support, and left alone to raise four growing children. I asked Kacie how she could handle such a bleak future. She smiled peacefully and said, “I have never been happier or more hopeful in my life. We hold to the promises we received in the temple.”

Travis is now the bishop. Two months ago he had another major surgery. But he is optimistic and peaceful. Kacie’s vision has worsened. She now has a guide dog and is unable to drive. But she is content, raising her children and serving as a counselor in the Young Women presidency.

Travis and Kacie are building their house on the rock. Travis and Kacie trust the doctrine of Christ and the promise that God “shall consecrate [their] afflictions for [their] gain.” In God’s perfect plan, suffering with faith in Christ is linked to our becoming perfected in Christ. Like the wise man in the parable who built his house upon a rock, when the rain descends and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon the house Travis and Kacie are building, it will fall not, for it will be founded upon a rock.

I started my doctoral program in 2013. In my first class, we had an assignment to research and present our findings on the traditional use of Hawaiian words in a specific context. I chose to focus on religious lexical terms since we were reading the story of Kamehameha the Great, printed in the old Hawaiian newspapers in the early part of the 1900?s. The author was Joseph M. Poepoe, well known in Hawai?i for his literary publications and editorial work on eight Hawaiian language newspapers over a span of 24 years.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the religious lexical terms of a traditional Hawaiian story with those used in the Doctrine and Covenants that were printed around the same time. Little did I know at the time that there were two different publications of the Doctrine and Covenants in Hawaiian, one by our Church, translated by Ernest L. Miner, and the other by the Reorganized Church, who hired Poepoe to translate their Doctrine and Covenants. I learned that Poepoe had died in 1913, one hundred years prior to my research.

I felt impressed to learn more about him. Who was he as a person? Who was his family? Promptings led to old newspapers that contained the genealogy of his ancestors. I found that his temple work had been completed, but work for his family unit and extended family still needed to be done. I did what I could by inputting all the information I had, going back several generations, but did not request to do the temple work since I was not a direct descendent. A few weeks later, a high priest from our ward called, stating that his good friend was visiting. He was a descendent of Poepoe, and that he had requested the temple ordinances; however, he permitted for me to take the names to the temple.

All that week, the Spirit prompted me with urgency to go to the Kona Temple on Saturday. I remember asking my husband if we should invite one of the young men in the ward to go with us. Tim answered, “No, the Lord will provide.” And he did. When we walked into the baptistry, there were two young men from Maui there with their father. When it was time for the male members of Poepoe’s family to be baptized by proxy, these two young men were invited to do the ordinances. Afterward, I went to speak to the father and found out that these two young men were Hawaiian immersion students and were fluent in Hawaiian. I asked him to please explain to his sons regarding the work they did for the Joseph Poepoe family.

When I arrived at church the next day, I was surprised to see the same father and two sons visiting our ward, especially since the temple is in Kona, and our ward is on the opposite side of the island. They were staying with longtime friends in Puna who were members of our ward. During Relief Society, the mother of the two boys introduced herself to me and explained that she is a descendent of Poepoe. Through the whisperings of the Spirit, I am convinced that the Lord had a hand in putting these worthy young men in exactly the right place and at the right time to bring about sacred eternal blessings for their family.

I am still amazed how all the moving parts of this story just seemed to fall into place in a remarkable way. Doubters may say it was coincidence, but I cannot deny the inspirations, promptings, and the thinning of the veil that was experienced on that special day.

I was born to A Latter-day Saint Family and baptized at age eight; I faithfully attended church and seminary. But although the gospel had always been a part of my life, I wasn’t truly converted.
As a seminary student, I had developed good habits of scripture study that served me well for several years. But I could never bring myself to get really serious about prayer. In my youth I had made many mistakes, which made praying seem painful and hard.
I went off to college, and when I was 21, my father died unexpectedly in an accident. In my bitterness, I stopped reading the scriptures.
Years passed. I married in the temple and bore three children while my husband struggled through law school. Because I was without the sustenance of scripture study and deep, sincere prayer, the trials and frustrations of this period left me open to the adversary. My feelings became tainted with anger and a sense of failure.
Then my husband graduated and found a job that took us to another state. I had lived in many parts of the United States, but this move left me feeling terribly out of place. Our new ward was in a fairly wealthy area. My husband and I had a lot of school debt and very few possessions. We drove an old car, our clothes were outdated, and our furniture was secondhand and mismatched. The disparity was painfully obvious to me.
It wasn’t that I coveted what others had. I simply couldn’t imagine that they could see me as a worthwhile person when I had so little.
As the months passed, I had great difficulty making friends in the ward. I had been fairly comfortable in our wards in college, but now I felt intimidated and isolated from the friends and family who valued me.
A very long year and a half passed. I felt more insecure and unaccepted than I had felt since being a teenager in junior high school. I gave up even trying to fit in.
Then a ward member named Julie, a sister whom I greatly admired, began reaching out to me. She was 10 years older than I, a woman of great faith, and respected by everyone. I couldn’t believe she really wanted to get to know me, but I was lonely enough to accept her invitation to go jogging with her and some of her friends each morning at a nearby track.
Every day, Julie arrived having just finished morning prayer and scripture study. She was always filled with enthusiasm about the gospel, the scriptures, and the insights that came to her as she read. Running with her was like going to a devotional or a seminary class. And she seemed genuinely interested in me; she listened without judgment to my frustrations and fears.
I found Julie’s enthusiasm irresistible. Following her example, I became dedicated to a program of regular, serious scripture study for the first time in seven years.
I began to feel the Spirit in my life on a daily basis, and I found that I was able to follow the Spirit in fulfilling my calling as a Beehive adviser. I also realized that even though I’d been physically present in the programs and meetings, I had been spiritually inactive for many years.
Then one day, I walked into church a little late. Julie was leading the music, as she did every week. I looked up at her face. Her smile was wonderful, radiant, somehow filled with light. She looked directly at me, and I was overcome with an overpowering sensation of warmth and peace and joy. I was surprised. I knew I was feeling the Spirit very strongly, but I didn’t understand what the feeling meant.
I pondered throughout Sunday School and sacrament meeting, all the time cherishing this feeling of great peace and joy. By the end of the meeting, I understood the reason for this witness. I realized that Julie, being filled with the Spirit, actively sought to convey the love of the Savior to the congregation by the light of her countenance (see Alma 5:14, 19).
And then, into my mind came the whispered words that changed my life: “You must learn to be like that.” I was stunned. Suddenly my perspective shifted. I was to learn to smile like that and to convey the love and kindness to others that Julie had extended to me. For the first time, I understood that if I had the love of Christ in my countenance, no one would care what my clothes looked like, or my car, or my house.
My life was very different after that. The next month I walked into homemaking meeting, where I had always felt hopelessly out of place; I looked around at the room full of faces as if for the first time. It seemed that everyone there was either my friend already or needed a friend. I saw no condescension or condemnation in anyone. Nor was I looking for it. I was looking outward for what I could give.
After that, I continued to mature in terms of my motivation and expectations. As I felt more and more of the Spirit in my life, I desired to have the strength and faith to do anything the Lord might ask.
About this time, I attended a fireside where Julie spoke; she talked a lot about prayer. I took her counsel to heart and decided to start praying morning and night with real sincerity. I got up earlier than before, scheduled 15 or 20 minutes just for prayer, and treated it as an appointment with the most important person in my life. I found that I could get answers and guidance in a way I never had before.
I began to study the Atonement intensively. And I studied the doctrine of the change of heart and the meaning of being born again. As I studied, I developed a profound reverence for the Savior, for the power of his atonement, and for its efficacy in saving me from all of my failings and weaknesses.
One day I read Mosiah 5:7–8: “Ye shall be called the children of Christ … ; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.
“And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free.”
Now I understood the words made free. I was being released from so many personal fears, inadequacies, and negative feelings that it seemed as if tangible shackles were falling from my hands and feet. My posture changed as I began to see myself as a person who had every reason to stand tall. My children asked why I was smiling so much. My husband asked why we didn’t quarrel anymore. My mother and brothers simply asked, “What happened?”
I spent three years in that ward where I had initially felt so uncomfortable. My last 18 months were a wonderful, fulfilling time. Sometimes I faced difficult trials, but I also felt an assurance that the Lord was mindful of me and that the painful experiences were for my growth.
By the time I left that ward, I not only felt loved, I also felt trusted and honored by the members there. I had had many humbling, spiritual experiences as well as opportunities to serve, to speak, and to teach. The ward had become a cherished family.
Julie remains a dear friend. Her gift for radiating light continues to touch my life and the lives of many others. Her example showed me how to reach for the Savior, the source of the light. And this has given me the means to lift and love and comfort many people. I believe that if I continue to progress, someday I, too, will be filled with his love and receive his image in my countenance.

Some men and boys were stretched out under a large tree in a little grove near Nauvoo. Among them were loyal followers of the Prophet Joseph Smith, but there were also several of his enemies.
A young man by the name of Philemon Merrill rested quietly by the side of the Prophet, listening to a large and powerful man boast that he could throw anyone in the group. “In fact,” he said, “I can throw anyone in the whole state of Illinois.”
Stephen Markham was a bodyguard of Joseph Smith. He was a huge man and noted for his ability to wrestle. He accepted the challenge and, much to everyone’s surprise, was quickly thrown.
This only served to whet the appetite of the boaster who insisted that someone else become his victim. The enemies of the Prophet began to insult him and his followers, calling them cowards because they didn’t quickly send another man to meet the challenge.
Joseph Smith turned to the young man beside him and said, “Get up and throw that boaster.” Surprise and fear gripped Philemon who, since he was not a wrestler, was about to refuse. However, the look in the Prophet’s eyes stopped him.
Joseph Smith’s followers knew he was a man of great faith. So strong was his faith that his followers felt they could do anything the Prophet asked of them.
Philemon arose to his feet to obey the strange command given him. As he did so, his body was suddenly filled with unusual strength. He lifted his arms and stood ready for action. Despite the protests of his friends, Philemon even gave the boasting wrestler his choice of sides.
As they began to grapple, the Prophet said, “Philemon, when I count three, throw him!”
Philemon’s whole body and soul swelled with an unquestioning faith in his ability to carry out the command of Joseph Smith. As the word “three” was pronounced by the Prophet, the young man, with the strength of a giant, lifted his large opponent and threw him over his left shoulder while the amazed group watched in silent awe. Then a cheer rang through the little grove.
There were no more challenges to wrestle that day.

While I was at Duke University, I had the opportunity to play volleyball. On one of our trips I was in a discussion with two of our team members one of whom was in the Divinity School there and was in his last year and the other a younger student from Brazil. The divinity student had spent his last few summers doing student preaching (if that was what it was called.) He was a nice guy and everyone on the team got along great. The young man from Brazil was a fine player. As we traveled to a meet, the young Brazilian asked the "to be" minister a question. He stated that he was in love with a girl and wanted to know if it was wrong to have premarital relations with her. What did the future minister friend think? My friend said - "I think it is fine".

At that point I nearly scared them to death as I said in an agitated voice - what are you talking about? Haven't you read the Bible? I then quoted Matt 5:28 which reads, But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. I also pointed to counsel given by Paul to Timothy and Titus pointing out the sins of the flesh and commending them to be chaste. My friend agreed that indeed the scriptures said that and the discussion grew quiet. The young Brazilian had not gotten the permission slip he wanted and I may have embarrassed my divinity student friend. But in good conscience I could not let him give such bad counsel.

When I was a little girl our Primary put on an annual "Life of Christ" pageant. Twelve boys played apostles, but there weren't many roles for girls. One year I played Pontius Pilate's wife. Loaded with costume jewelry, a diamond dangling on my forehead, I ran on stage to plead for a prisoner because of a dream.[2]
The role I wanted least but remember best was a Foolish Virgin. We were given wooden lamps, but only five lamps had a yellow flame. I remember being teased by my oldest, tallest, brother-who also played the role of Christ-about being one of the foolish five. In our scene the 10 virgins gathered at the back of the stage, and when "the bridegroom came"[3] a big crowd surrounded Jesus and walked across the stage, "and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage". The five wise virgins joined the celebration and exited with the crowd of disciples and a loud bang signaled "the door was shut".
One performance is a powerful memory. When the door slammed and the lights went out, and the five foolish virgins were left alone on a darkened stage, it wasn't my playful older brother, in a glued on beard and white robe, behind a closed door. It was Jesus, and my child's heart ached to join him. I did not want to be alone in the black, shut out because I was not prepared, was not worthy. I yearned to be a disciple and follow Him.
Since that defining moment as a Primary child, when I stood on a dark stage holding an empty lamp, additional experiences have fortified my desire to stay on the path.

The Wadsworths of Panaca, Nevada
Franklin Don Wadsworth was an enterprising young man from Nevada who met a lovely young woman from Salt Lake City by the name of Sylvia Hinckley. They were soon married, and they were blessed with 11 children: seven sons and four daughters. When the youngest son, David, was seven years of age, his lovely mother died suddenly at age 49. Notwithstanding this tragic and untimely loss, the Wadsworth children rallied around their heartbroken father, providing great comfort to him and to each other. Then, just 17 months later, not long after David was baptized, his father died at age 56, leaving eight unmarried children at home.

The relatives counseled together, and it was decided that one uncle and his wife would take some of the children into their home and another uncle and aunt would care for the rest of the children in their home.

At this point the Wadsworth children met in family council, with the oldest son, Franklin Brent, taking charge. The children unanimously agreed that their deceased parents would not want them to be separated and unable to see each other frequently during their formative years. Their parents had taught them to serve one another and to be responsible for one another, so they declined any outside help. The members of the extended family agreed to stand back and let them give it a try.

Lark was in her third year in high school, and the school allowed her to take all of her classes early in the day so she would be home in time to welcome the younger children when they arrived home from school. Valerie was in the process of graduating from college, and she found a job nearby and helped with the younger children for the first year. Scott was a returned missionary, and he worked the family farm and commuted to Cedar City, where he attended college.

All of the children eventually went to college, and all of the sons served missions. When only two children—David, then 14, and Charlotte, then 17— remained living at home, they were invited by their older sister Terry and her husband, Lorell Bleak, to live with their family.

Though Don and Sylvia Wadsworth were snatched from their mortal existence prematurely, they had taught their children by precept and example that true joy comes from loving and serving others and placing the needs of others above their own. Now in postmortality Don and Sylvia claim a rich posterity of 106 grandchildren and 80 great-grandchildren.